KGB Bar

Amanda Whiting (fiction) grew up in New Jersey, and received her BA in Philosophy from Williams College in western Massachusetts in 2006. Her professional life took her from Washington, D.C. to London, and from the cubicles of Corporate Litigation to the sales floor of an Abercrombie & Fitch. Inspired by a year spent studying at Oxford University, she spent 18 months living in the UK. She is happy to continue to pursue her MFA at Rutgers Newark.

Susan Riedel (poetry) received a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, 2008, with a double major in Painting and English. In the past year, she has been editing the autobiography of a fellow writer, as well as working on an autobiographical project of her own.  What inspires her creativity is her passion for travel, music, painting, film, and poetry, and, especially, her search for ways of combining them into a perpetual work of art.

Claudio Mir (fiction) was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He received the El Dorado Award for Best Dominican Actor of the Year for his performance in Regina Express. He earned a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and received a Professional Actor Degree from the School of Scenic Arts, National Fine Arts Palace, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He has also studied theater direction at the International School of Latin American and Caribbean Theater in Bologna, Italy, and earned his Associates Degree in Professional and Commercial Photography from Middlesex County College in New Jersey.